Last Street Sweeping of 2009

A Message From the DPW about Street Sweeping
Enforcement of Street Sweeping the week of October 26 - October 30, 2009

Residents of Winthrop,

The week of October 26th through the 30th will be the last Town-wide street sweeping event of the year. To be truly effective the Town needs residents to remove vehicles from the streets between 7 am and 4 pm on the day of trash pickup on the street where you customarily park. We intend to increase enforcement, as this will be the last chance until next spring to make our streets look their best. As we close out the 3rd year of street sweeping it is clear that parked vehicles are the single biggest issue, reducing efficiency and safety of the program. Last month the Police Department issued over 200 warning tickets to vehicles illegally obstructing the street sweeper.

When the DPW developed the street sweeping program, we looked at many options such as the past practice of the day after trash pickup or alternating street sides and area focused programs. We spoke with many communities about what was most effective before concluding that a straight forward, simple to understand program would likely yield the best results. The hope with our program was that when a resident puts out, walks by, or simply sees a trash barrel on the street he/she will think that the sweeper may be coming and will therefore utilize off-street parking whether, in a driveway or in one of the numerous public lots. There are other benefits including the ability to improve the efficiency of trash collection and aligning the noise impacts, but trash day was mainly chosen for the ability to be obvious.

For three years now, the DPW has promoted the program with newspaper articles, public hearings, mobile signs, mass mailings, web announcements, windshield bulletins, CodeRed phone calls, warning tickets and CATV programs. Our experience is that the compliance, which we estimate under 20%, has not improved in spite of these efforts. That was a driving factor in last month’s issuance of Police warnings and there is reason why we intend to follow that up with strict enforcement this month.

We understand that shifting vehicles around or walking further from one’s home represents an inconvenience.  We also understand the availability of parking in a community such as ours is a significant challenge.  One of the many functions of the DPW is to provide our residents with clean streets.   As residents, we must also recognize our obligation to a successful street cleaning operation.  In strained economic times such as these, we must take every measure to maximize the program’s efficiency.  We recognize the inconvenience of vehicle owners having to move their vehicles.   However, if vehicle owners move their vehicles just six times per year, this would make the program run 80% more efficient.

We really need your cooperation and participation.

Department of Public Works
Winthrop Police Department
Winthrop Parking Clerk

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